


little pieces of my heart

by princessoftheworlds



Series: The Many Lives and Lies of Jack Harkness [7]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Adoption, Families of Choice, Gen, Implied/References to Genocide, Kid Fic, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds
Summary: Death and loss isn't Jack's legacy.
Series: The Many Lives and Lies of Jack Harkness [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779442
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	little pieces of my heart

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Bloody Torchwood for this. Thanks to Alicia for editing and Akal and Daniela for cheerleading!

Long into the sixty-seventh century, Jack is on a deserted planet devastated by war. Rava, the planet is called, and as of less than twenty-four hours ago, it was brimming to life, populated by a species of gorgeous, melodic humanoids in tones of an Earth sunset. The Ravan were brutally slaughtered by a rival species, and now, Jack’s here checking for survivors, courtesy of Torchwood.

There appear to be none.

Gravel crunches beneath his feet as he stalks down the rubble-laden streets. Bodies are everywhere. Over there, a fire-damaged roof is still smouldering. Over here, there’s…

Jack flinches and diverts his eyes, squeezing them shut, but the afterimage is still burned on his corneas. No one,  _ no one,  _ should be forced to see such a horrific sight, but Jack is immortal, and so is his memory. He will carry these memories, these horrors, with him long past even the name of this planet. He will be the one to intervene next time, not just arrive in the aftermath.

There’s a sudden, distant wail, and Jack whips around, hand at the sonic blaster holstered at his waist, but he has no need for his weapon. It’s a distinctive sound; even several millenia after the birth of his first child - and hadn’t that been an  _ awe,  _ cradling this gentle, fragile new life in his arms, life he’d help create, and watching sleepy eyes blink up at him,  _ his eyes, _ his paternal instinct hasn’t faded.

He crosses the street, his stride quickening. When he lifts a stray plank of wood, which crumbles almost instantly under his touch, he finds a basket shield by a force field. Inside the basket, a sky-colored Ravan blinks sleepy silver eyes up at him and wiggles eight healthy fingers and toes, normal for her species, before beginning its hungry wail again.

Jack falls instantly in love. Once he disables the force field with his vortex manipulator, he reaches down to cradle the Ravan baby to his chest and watches her coo softly. His immortal heart quivers in his chest.

“Hey, I got you,” he whispers to her. “You’re safe now.”

(When he learns that Torchwood is unable to house the last surviving Ravan, he takes her home. He names her Araceli. She is the first of his little brood, the eldest of the little family he comes to form.)

* * *

Jack raises Araceli as his daughter, but once he realizes how many lost or abandoned there are, just like Araceli, his heart clenches and his family expands.

Next is Min, from a species of winged humanoids. They are cast out from their aloof family and society when their grand speckled brown wings are found to be unable to carry their weight, leaving them grounded. Jack finds them at age seven, peddling tricks in the commercial marketplace of a grand metropolis. He charms Min by showing them the ultimate magic trick - making himself invisible via perception filter, and Min follows him home. Araceli gains a sibling.

Twins Eloise and Elena, almost entirely human, are rescued from a flooding colony, and both refuse to release Jack’s hands once they teleport to solid, dry ground. 

By the time Jack brings home Tos - nonvebal but telepathic and tentacled - and Tos’s pet ruffin - a fluffy beast that vaguely resembles a dog, cat,  _ and  _ parrot - his spacious cottage has run out of rooms to convert to bedrooms. He stops in the main hall and listens to Araceli squabble with Elena and Min sing tales of flying and other young voices bicker over toys and colors and drawings. Holographic scrolls chattering in high-pitched voices and giant bright building blocks lie scattered around the living room, and his children, his many, many children, run amok in his house.

Jack knows what he has to do.

* * *

_ The Gray Thane Home  _ is founded in an expanded new construction that originally composed of Jack’s cottage and named for the child Javic Thane failed when he was barely out of childhood himself. There are four wings - one for children, one for teenagers, one for young adults, and one for those older. 

Anyone - the lost, the abandoned, the traumitized, the forgotten - is welcome, and no one is turned away. This is their second chance. After all, everyone deserves a second chance; Jack learned that himself from a certain leather coat-wearing Doctor and a bright-eyed, blond-haired human named Rose.

He raises them all, cares for them, feeds them, helps them anyway he can. And when Jack Harkness has lived a long, healthy life, he quietly slips away from the spotlight, and the mantle falls to Araceli Harkness. 

Years later, centuries, really, Jack will return to where  _ The Gray Thane Home  _ and finds a bustling school and a larger home and a new generation of lost children, a new generation of his family, and his heart will swell with pride.

He will think back to the first family of lost souls he brought together, of Tosh and Owen and Ianto and Gwen, and he will know that devastation and loss and death doesn’t have to be the secret legacy of his many lives.

_ This  _ can be his legacy. A home. Family. Love. There is no better legacy for Captain Jack Harkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik) to let me know how much you liked this fic or request a prompt. Also, please comment or drop a line below even if it's to telling me how you've been doing. I thrive on kudos and social interacting, especially in this day and age.


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